After 30 years in his beloved São Paulo building, architect João Mansur gets another opportunity to showcase his vivid imagination with a second apartment three floors down

Living Room

Living Room

When João Mansur was five years old, the wood blocks he played with became a miniature house on the staircase of his parents' Rio de Janeiro residence. He incorporated a pool area and even real sand, which he'd taken home from Leblon Beach, one of Rio's most beautiful. "I used the first three stairs so it would be like a triplex apartment," he says, laughing at the memory. "It was natural for me. I believe I was born an architect."

The pair of Louis XV fauteuils and a circa-1930 Chinese rug in the living room are family heirlooms; the 19th-century chandelier is French, and the Brazilian cocktail tables are from the 1960s.

Dining Room

Dining Room

Which is exactly what he went on to become, establishing a São Paulo–based firm three decades ago. Mansur is known for a design style that nods to the classical, with hints of Asian elements (deep red accents that recall Chinese pageantry are a trademark). That aesthetic is on full display in his recent work on a second apartment, three floors down from the penthouse where he and his wife, Maria Cristina, have lived since they first married.